The Twitter account for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a far right congresswoman who often pushes conspiratorial and false claims, was suspended on Monday evening by the company for containing misinformation about the coronavirus.
“We took enforcement action on the account @mtgreenee for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” a company spokesperson said regarding Greene’s suspension.
Greene will be suspended for 12 hours from the platform. She will be able to use her account later on Tuesday.
Twitter labeled two tweets that Greene authored on Sunday and Monday as “misleading.” The company announced in March that it was implementing a “strike system” for dealing with misinformation. A user can be suspended for 12 hours after two or three “strikes,” and can have a weeklong suspension after a fourth strike. A fifth strike results in a total ban from Twitter.
Earlier this year, Greene was also suspended by Twitter over her false claims about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The company had deemed her tweets as promoting ideas that created “a risk for violence.”
An official speaking to NBC News about Greene said she has accrued “multiple” strikes as of this week.
Using her Facebook account to comment on her suspension on Twitter, Greene wrongly claimed that her free speech rights were under “attack.” However, First Amendment speech protections do not apply to the actions that private companies can take against individuals.
Greene’s tweets contained errant claims, including the false notion that the virus is only dangerous for people with certain health conditions or people of certain ages. She also falsely said that the coronavirus vaccines have resulted in thousands of people dying — a patently false claim that has been debunked many times over.
The Georgia congresswoman’s suspension comes days after President Joe Biden took a critical tone with social media companies, mainly Facebook, for allowing misinformation to spread online, adding that inaction by the social media company in addressing the problem was “killing people.”
“We’re dealing with a life or death issue here, and so everybody has a role to play in making sure there’s accurate information,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week. “[Facebook is a] private sector company. They’re going to make decisions about additional steps they can take. It’s clear there are more that can be taken.”
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has also called on social media companies to take more proactive measures to stop the spread of misinformation on vaccines and the coronavirus.
Social media sites “have worked to try to, you know, up promote accurate sources like the CDC and other medical sources. Others have tried to reduce the prevalence of false sources and search results,” Murthy recognized while speaking to CNN on Sunday. “But what I’ve also said to them, publicly and privately, is that it’s not enough. That we are still seeing a proliferation of misinformation online. And we know that health misinformation harms people’s health. It costs them their lives.”
As troubling misinformation continues online and the country has largely reopened with fewer or no restrictions being enforced in many places, the number of new coronavirus cases being reported in the past two weeks has increased by 198 percent. The number of deaths from COVID-19 in that time has also increased, by 75 percent. Current available data suggests that greater than 99 percent of people who are dying from the virus are those who have not been vaccinated.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.